DJI Phantom 3 Advanced Critically Low Battery Error

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Today i took the drone out of the car to film a sunset the battery was at 53% and as soon as i took it up i got a propulsion limited message which i thought was very strange, anyways i wasn't going far so i went a little further and higher and stayed there filming. Then i got a critically low battery warning and it started to land itself into a bloody tree. Luckily for me i brought it home after doing it in my pants as i thought it was going to fall out of the sky.Total flight time like 4 minutes

When i landed it it still had 45% battery as my pictures show. All cells are good and drone battery was flashing like 2 or 3 LEDs still.

I have never crashed, the UAV is in brand new condition and there battery has been charged 30 times

What do i do?

I'm now to scared to fly it

I've attached pictures

Your advise would be greatly appreciated. I've flown many times but never seen this
 

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Please help me. This is the log file i uploaded

When i took off i got the following message
Warning:propulsion Output Limited.

then i got the following message
Critically Low Power. Aircraft Landing.

Takeoff Battery 54%
Landing Battery 43%

Why This makes no sense

http://healthydrones.com/main?share=RGVeI

-------

Below is what DJI sent. Its good info but it doesn't explain why critical battery at 43%

Dear Rick,

Thank you for contacting DJI Technical Support.

About this issue, please kindly re-install DJI GO and set the critical low battery warning on DJI GO again.

Then please do the below steps to fully discharge and fully charge the battery:
1) Turn on the drone and let it hover until 5% power left, it will land automatically.
2) Keep the drone on and stop the motors, until the drone shut down by itself.
3) Fully charge the battery and try to fly again.

If the problem still exists after these steps, please come back to me again.

Thanks for choosing DJI.

Best Regards,

Justin

DJI Technical Support
 
Please upload your TXT flight log here and post a link back here.
 
My P3A did this same exact thing to me, I was running older firmware I updated the remote batteries and drone haven't had any problems yet


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots
 
My P3A did this same exact thing to me, I was running older firmware I updated the remote batteries and drone haven't had any problems yet


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

Thank you for your reply, I will be checking firmware tonight. The thought of this UAV falling out of the sky due to a malfunction scares me.

Thank again will check tonight and update everytging
 
Your flight log looks okay to me. When flying on a low battery (e.g. 54%), you need to take special care not to do any type of maneuvers that cause the battery voltage to dip (e.g. steep inclines). The battery voltage hit 3.3V, so it was attempting to land in order to prevent the battery from shutting off mid-flight (which occurs at 3.0V). If you monitor your battery voltage as you fly, you'll have a better understanding of how much usable battery you actually have left.
 
Your flight log looks okay to me. When flying on a low battery (e.g. 54%), you need to take special care not to do any type of maneuvers that cause the battery voltage to dip (e.g. steep inclines). The battery voltage hit 3.3V, so it was attempting to land in order to prevent the battery from shutting off mid-flight (which occurs at 3.0V). If you monitor your battery voltage as you fly, you'll have a better understanding of how much usable battery you actually have left.

But I was being conservatory, I wasn't pushing it all. What I do t understand is why at 53% battery do I need to look at the voltage? Isn't the % enough?

Why did I get critical battery at 43%
Is this normal? Because this is scary stuff, what if I was out at sea as I quite frequently do.

Why would the voltage dip to 3.3 like you said but 43% battery was still remaing?

Thanks for your help
 
Why did I get critical battery at 43%
The voltage dropped to a very low level because your battery was low and you pushed it by climbing steeply. Next time, try a very gradual incline by flying horizontally at the same time. The voltage shouldn't spike then.
 
What msinger mentioned.

A battery siting idle will show a higher voltage then when it's under load. The second issue was that the percentage shown is a guess by the application... it's not as accurate as the actual voltage. As Msinger mentioned, I _highly_ recommend that everyone turn on the voltage display within the app and watch the voltage.... not just that percentage. It shows you much better information. It will also go from green to yellow to red.

You can also do as DJI recommends. This helps the smart battery better understand where the lowest charge is (5%) and the highest charge is (100%). It may then report more accurate percentages.

Since the problems with batteries this past winter DJI has made a _lot_ of changes to the batteries to help prevent issues. They now report when they are too cold and too warm. They also now don't simply shut off as easily (critical battery level... the battery itself, not just the what the app reports as critical).

Also, and it's been discussed before, it's always better to start flying with a battery at 100%. You can start with less but it's then important to know that the percentage reported is probably lower then it actually is. You should watch that voltage.
 
Since the problems with batteries this past winter DJI has made a _lot_ of changes to the batteries to help prevent issues.
No doubt. This is a perfect example of how well their failsafes work.
 
I have charged up the battery and will test today. DJI is also looking at the .Dat file from the UAV so I'll keep you posted on that.

Once again thank you for all your help.
 

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